When Success is Slow, What Can You Do?

Pop Quiz: Can success be sped up? Is there an antidote to slow outcomes despite arduous planning and actions taken? What’s the secret for seeing huge results right now?!

I get versions of these questions frequently from people who feel frustrated at sluggish progress in their success journey – despite all the know-how and principles they rigorously employ.

Let’s get one thing straight…

When we admire someone’s success, or even our own, we often focus on the end result and not so much on the effort (and time) that it took to get there. This can cultivate unrealistic expectations, especially the idea that overnight success can happen through careful strategy and an execution of sound advice.

The truth be told, success typically follows a series of little events and achievements that can seem to take an eternity, that include a few disappointments along the way, and that challenge everything about you to the core – your stamina, courage, integrity, and even your willingness to keep going.

If you focus on what’s not working, guess what: You’re likely coming from a place of aggravation as your mind wraps around all that is wrong.

You may even have negative thoughts like “I’m not good enough,” “It will never work,” or “Something must be wrong with me.”

What this mentally does is engender more of these counter-productive feelings. And given what we know about the Law of Attraction, you attract what you are feeling. So negative experiences, people, and results will beget more negative experience, people, and results. There’s not much success in that.

The key, then, is to focus on what IS working.

To do so, I recommend two simple practices: journaling and meditation.

Maintaining a journal (I call it an Evidence Log, Results Journal, or Gratitude Journal) is a great way to steer your attention to the positive and continually renew your vision for yourself.

Start each day with reflections on what you are grateful for in your life (list them out!) and end each day with notes on what went right (again, write them down), however small they may seem.

Meditation can be a powerful tool for arriving at solutions to problems and shifting your attitude so you can attract success sooner rather than later. The magic of meditation is its ability to essentially shut down the outer layer of your judgmental, highly-critical brain and allow your unconscious mind to take over. This is where you enter a deeper state of inner peace and joy, tapping into a higher level of creativity that will help usher in the results you want.

Let’s say you’re doing ALL these things, but you still aren’t happy with your results…

You may be taking the actions you are used to taking. But if you keep doing what you’ve already done, then you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten. It’s a matter of practicing some new behaviors. Shake things up a bit and see if you can take new actions or modify existing ones.

Remember the Rule of 5.

Every day do five specific things that take you toward your goal. Change up the five actions regularly and be open to feedback so you know when you’re off course.

Lastly, I want to remind you about patience.

It’s natural to underestimate how long a certain goal can take, especially a profound one. When I set a goal to become a millionaire the year was 1983. How long did it take? Eleven years. It took time for Chicken Soup for the Soul to hit the bestseller lists. You could say our tenure on the New York Times list was more than a decade in the making. That’s a lot of patience for someone who initially wanted overnight success.

So, yes, patience is a virtue. But keep at it, and in no time, you’ll be only one week, or one day away from your ultimate success.

As the beloved originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul®series, Jack Canfield fostered the emergence of inspirational anthologies as a genre—and watched it grow to a billion dollar market. As the driving force behind the development and delivery of over 100 million books sold through the Chicken Soup for the Soul® franchise, Jack Canfield is uniquely qualified to talk about success. Jack is America’s #1 Success Coach and wrote the life-changing book The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be and speaks around the world on this subject. Follow Jack at www.jackcanfield.com and sign up for his free resources today!

Very powerful thoughts for me right now, I was focusing in what was not working in my life and I was struggling much, now I will change the focus in what is working in my life… thank you for your post…I will use a journal and continue meditating I am very positive my life will turn in a beautiful change… Love… I feel happy now

Positively Positive

We’re so happy to hear that you found Jack’s post helpful @sokito:disqus!

http://cashwithatrueconscience.com/rbblog Ryan Biddulph

Jack, I LOVE seeing good things happening, each hour of the way, then my success speeds up. Fill yourself with gratitude, and nothing moves slowly on the success front. All accelerates at a quick rate. Great tips Thanks!

Positively Positive

Thx @ryanbiddulph:disqus – love seeing your comments!

http://www.praverb.net/ Praverb

Ryan, I love when I visit sites and see your comments. It solidifies the strength of the community. Great insight once again.

Talya Price

Great post. Everything you said is absolutely true. The more you put into something the more you get out. There is no such thing as overnight success. I wish I could tell every aspiring actor this. Thank you for this post.

Positively Positive

Thx so much @talyaprice:disqus for your comment!

missphenom

Yes, success is slow but I am happy that I am implementing the 5 daily action steps into my regimen. I see the progress within one week. I am farther along and have some metrics. Furthermore, I have scheduled a career coach outside of my circle to get honest feedback. This coach was a former HR director. She had told me that I sounded angry and immediately it’s embarrassing because I don’t want to come off like this. I also feel that this is the reason why I’ve lost an in-person interview.Though I am still struggling to get out of a toxic work environment, I do see the light at the end of the tunnel ahead of me.

Positively Positive

Good luck with your job search @missphenom:disqus

Toni P

Thank you Jack, just what I needed to hear

Positively Positive

Thank you @disqus_p1a567RGKV:disqus!

http://www.praverb.net/ Praverb

Great post once again. Jack really provides valuable content with this post. Journaling and meditation, two things that I need to do more. I write everyday yet I do not take the time to detach from this overly stressful life. I thank the creator daily yet I think I need to spend more time in silence. Dead the electronic devices and just listen. If you guys have some suggestions on Meditation practices can you please share them in future posts (or I could stop being lazy and research haha).